The transition of British secondary schools from predominantly selective to predominantly comprehensive started with the issuing of Circular 10/65 by the Department of Education and Science under a Labour government in 1965. The intention was to transform a highly stratified system into a more equal one. However, this study shows that the new system was in fact highly diverse and retained features of the selective system, thus preserving the middle-class advantage into the comprehensive era. This overview draws on a range of sources, including information collected from the National Child...